Oyinlola, George intensify verbal war over Obasanjo’s coalition

A former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, yesterday said a former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Chief Bode George did not make him a governor.

He said George was backing a candidate before he made a U-urn when it was obvious that he was going to win the gubernatorial primaries.

He also challenged George to open the can of worms he threatened to release.

The two leaders had been bickering on the propriety or otherwise of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) which was formed by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo against a second term in office for President Muhammadu Buhari.

Oyinlola said what he told George in a statement on Saturday was just a piece of advice from a prince to a chief in Yorubaland on why he should stop throwing stones at his benefactors.

George in a response said:” I read today the untidy, uncharitable and irritable vituperations of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola against my good self. I was rather astonished at the level of uninformed , reckless, misleading verbiage against me”.

“Prince Oyinlola was very junior to me in the military. I am very senior to him in age. It was my humble self and the late Chief S.M. Afolabi who introduced him to our former President and my Egbon Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

“ It was through me and the grace of God Almighty that he was elected Governor of Osun State. Oyinlola should not dabble into issues he does not know anything about at all. I have served several Generals with hundred per cent loyalty. I have no grudge against our former President. I have a lot of respect for him. I greet him wherever we meet with deep respect and reverence as a well born Yoruba man.

“Oyinlola, please don’t start to open any can of worms that you do not know where it will- widen and spill over.

“When one is sent a slave’s errand, you should behave like a true, well-born”

But Oyinlola in a reply also yesterday insisted that it was God who made him a governor and not George.

Oyinlola said: “I must however, say that I found it surprising that Chief George said he made me governor of Osun state. How?

“I became governor by the grace of God and the overwhelming support of the people of Osun state. The results of that election showed clearly that my support was rooted in the people and not in outsiders who neither voted nor funded my election.

“I know my leaders whose support was greatly invaluable. They were with me throughout the unprecedented three primaries which I won three times.

”Chief George started out as a backer of one of those I was contending with. He later switched over to the popular side which was mine. He did not vote in my election; he did not give me money. So how did he make me governor?

He said it was uncharitable of George to repay good with evil by attacking his (George’s) benefactors who included former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He said: “If you are allergic to the singing of birds you won’t build your house near the bush. If Chief George didn’t want me to react to him, he won’t call me and other promoters of the CNM all sorts of names as he did.

“ Our ancestors in Yorubaland did not recommend Kolanut as appreciation for the kind of negative words Chief George used against me and other leaders of the CNM including Chief Obasanjo.

“Chief George is my Egbon by six years. I respect him and said so in my statement on Saturday. I observed he also said he was “very senior” to me in the military. He used the word “very.” It will interest him to know that I joined the Nigerian Army on September 3, 1969 and was commissioned as an officer on September 11, 1971. I want my Egbon to do his calculations and justify the word “very” that he used.

Oyinlola asked George to release the can of worms he had threatened to expose and insisted he must apologise to Obasanjo.